Vren55's Wild Idea, The Fanfiction of My Little Pony - A Community History · 6:49am Sep 29th, 2019
So, pardon my tagging everybody following Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen here because this is a highly interesting project idea that I would like people's opinion on and feedback, because I am in the middle of stabilizing my job and I suddenly now want to write a serious history of the MLP writing fandom.
I think some of the audience might know that I have a Masters degree in History and I like using it for my stories. While discussing random stuff with Wanderer D, I wondered if I could actually write a history of the fanfiction community in MLP... given we have two documentaries, but nearly nothing on the writers.
So I wrote this very rough outline/research plan that I'd like your opinion on
Title: The Fanfiction of My Little Pony - A Community History
Audience: Brony writers, but also to general public. This will be a non-fiction work.
Publishing date: COMPLETELY UNKNOWN, this is a spitball.
Collabs?: Completely possible, but I have other projects at the moment and I don't know how serious this project is going to be. Aka, do I want to go publish this as a work of non-fiction or not?
Research Question/questions: What factors influenced people in this community to participate, and influenced the way they participated? What can we learn about fandoms and writing trends from observing the history of this community? After all, this will be a community history, and a history of a genre.
Secondary goals: To explain to both writers and public how the community operated (written and unwritten rules), why/how certain people got popular, what can we learn from these trends and what caused them.
How to publish/distribute?
Unknown plans..... let's write the damn thing first.
Research method:
Oral history focused. Collect information from structured interviews (that will be recorded either audio or video) with various users representing different observed groups divided by genre and topics. At least one author should have published consistently and have stories over 200-300 likes in the last 2 years. I will also interview readers of those stories, mostly those that commented consistently (indicates passion, ease of contact).
Genre Topics (authors and story notes below each topic, you should totally check out all the authors/stories on this list. Note, many entries span multiple categories, I just put them in different ones to try to fill out different categories eg. PaulAsaran's Gentle Nights is an amazing Romance, but there were so many I stuck it into Drama for the rough outline. Also, I take recommendations on which authors I might interview as the list is rough.)
Adventure
- Aegis Shield
- Kudzuhaiku
- Pen Stroke - Past Sins
- Estee-Triptych Continuum
Drama???
- Insertauthorhere - My Little Celestia
- Paulasaran- The Gentle Nights: The Audience of One
Alternate Universe
- Georg - Monster in Twilight
- Ponyville's Tiny Librarian - Commander X5
- Chengar Qordath
Crossovers
- SAPR by Sapphirepheonix
- Gunsmoke by Wanderer D
- Hasbroverse by RK_Striker_JK_5
- Fallout Equestria (subtopic) by Kkat
Human/Human in Equestria
- My Little Dashie
- Hoopy Mcgee - Project Sunflower
- Through the Well of Pirene by Ether Echoes
- Friendship is Optimal by Iceman
Romance
- Soundslikeponies
- Irrespective
- Georg
- Fractured Sunlight - Ouroboros
Dark/Horror
- Horse Voice
- Cupcakes - (I don't know who the author of that was and if they are still in fandom)
Slice of Life
- Rune Soldier Dan
- Background Pony
- Eakin?
Comedy
- Random
Clopfics???? Should I even approach subject?
- GaryOak
Anon?
- ??????
Topic specific genres
Changelings
- Myself
- Author of Smoke and Mirrors
- Wanderer D
- Sunset Shimmer
Reviewers/Culture of Reviewing and Promotion
- PaulAsaran
- Presentperfect
Cover Artists?
- InuHoshi-to-DarkPen - does Chengar Qordath’s covers
- Plainoasis - did two of my covers
Outline-to be revised
- Introduction - what is a fandom - what is the brony fandom? - why is this topic interesting?
History of the actual writing community in relation to brony fandom
- (each interview with every person will have questions regarding this topic to compile information)
The History of the Writing Community
- Brony fandom started on forums - writing not something done as much
Later with transition to EQD, EQD became dominant as only place where writing was shared, prior to that not really something was done
- Why EQD? Why did people behave like this?
Knighty then made fimfiction.net (gonna have to interview him and several moderators/admin assistants) and fimfiction.net grew to be preeminent over EQD
- But why?
- Why did people participate?
- What led switch?
- How did interface and direction of interaction lead to this change?
- Effects of feature box and fimfiction User Interface on writing styles?
Trends in Writing
- Questions to answer: why this trend at this point in time, what does it imply about community at this time?
Early on lots of Human in Equestria and Shipping
- Why was this the case and why did people read it?
Then shift in focus to adventure and more canon adventures, as well as Slice of Life
- Why was this the case and why did people read it?
After season 2, Changelings… changelings EVERYWHERE
- Why? How? What storylines and themes?
- Return to form, variety of works
The next big trend was Sunset Shimmer
- Why? How? What storylines explored
- Conclusion
- Appendices with Author Interviews
Yeah, that's my idea, what do you all think?
Sounds like a fairly interesting idea. I probably would read it.
While not an author myself, I will definitely be interested in reading this when you go forward with it! I'd really like to read some of your conclusions regarding the questions you posed in your outline!
For those authors who unfortunately passed away (like InsertAuthorHere), who will you interview instead?
I personally probably wouldn't read it, but I would appreciate it's existence.
Speaking as someone who has inexplicably spent seven years on this website, I'm down to both read this and help contribute to it. A couple thoughts on what would be included:
1. Old stories - I personally think a lot of the most well known stories in the fandom became so well known because they were released so early. Past Sins and Fallout Equestria are good (and cupcakes was just bad), but not as good as some of the later works that didn't get as much traction (see the results from the bronycon voting for best fic ever). However, they became the smash hits they are because they were that good when a lot of stuff wasn't out yet. On this same vein, a lot of older stories might need to be chronicled for a complete look at the fanfiction scene.
2. People moved to Fimfiction because relying purely on EQD for story updates was not an effective way of reading fanfiction, and before that, most stories were spread across a variety of different formats and sites. I remember one really good fic that I stopped track of because the author submitted them to EQD as google docs.
3. The one thing that fimfiction has that makes it better than any other fandom site (which definitely helps it's popularity) is the subscription/favorite system. I have stopped reading dozens of fanfics on A03 and FF.net because I missed the email saying a new chapter was posted, or didn't have time to read then, and then forgot about the email. Having a constant notification of how many unread chapters I have is amazing.
5129877
Insertauthorhere is dead???????? What?
Oh sh*t. I’d interview a few of his readers then.
5129886
There are people in the Lunaverse group who knew him well. Maybe you can start there when it comes to him.
If you're going to do this, don't forget Crisis Equestria by GanonFLCL. It's what convinced to start writing for the fandom and improving my writing skills in the first place.
I like the idea. What I would focus on are the stories that became so we'll known that other writers based their own stories on them. Stories whose names became shorthand for mini-genres like The Conversion Bureau. Find out why those stories became the basis of other people's work.
Well, initial impressions are that I would be fascinated to see some recognition for the fanfiction part of the fandom. It's a field that gets dismissed or overlooked, I think, all too often.
Looking down the list... you might benefit from roping a few more people in for a collaborative effort. It's not a necessity, but given the amount of potential material involved, a dedicated team might make the effort much easier on you. At least, I assume that's what you meant by collaboration?
For Reviewers/Culture of Reviewing and Promotion, I'd strongly recommend adding Chris to the list. His "One Man's Pony Ramblings" Blog was a staple back in the day, and ran for several years before its culmination early 2018. Check it out: http://onemansponyramblings.blogspot.com/
Also, you mention changelings and Sunset Shimmer, but I wonder if a history of the fanfic community might benefit from structuring itself according to the seasons, or even individual episodes, of the show. Progressing chronologically, and picking up trends and branches of development over time, while also using them to discuss particular subcategories as a whole?
For instance...
Sounds fascinating!
I’m certainly interested.
To answer your question about Cupcakes, the fic was allegedly written by someone known as "Sgt. Sprinkles". They didn’t have a FimFiction account (the account that’s currently using the name isn’t them), and as far as I’m aware they’ve since dropped off the face of the earth.
You can find an old interview with them here. Hope this helps a little!
I would love to read about this. I only joined the fandom in 2015, so many of the things that happened prior to me joining I only know after the fact. I didn’t read any of the big early stories as they we’re being written, and many trends I can only put together by looking at the publish dates. Seeing the perspective of someone who was actually there would be amazing.
This is a really cool idea, and a great blend of your passions. I wish you all the luck with it. :)
This sounds super interesting I gotta say. I'd definitely give it a read. Got a few author suggestions, too, if you don't mind. For the Romance genre, I'd recommend asking Oroboro and Monochromatic. Oroboro is the one who ran the Sunset Shimmer Shipping Contests so...yeah, and Monochromatic is like...the Rarilight author. Plus her stories are all really good so there's that. As for Changelings, there's Carapace. Not all of his stories are about them, but well...his name (and formally avatar) is related to them and he's created two different sets of lore for them in his "Respite" series and "The Face of Magic".
Suppose one thing would be seeing how the fandom changed through fanfiction, take as an example how it treated Celestia, or TCB
Ideas for trends in writing:
Early Luna, luna, luna, and the demonization of Celestia. From reunited sisters to war between The Lunar Republic and The Solar Empire.
The differentiation between Fallout Equestria and post-apocalyptic not-Fallout-Equestria.
The Conversion Bureau: from helpfully ponifying Earth, to invasive, chaotic evil Equestria, and back again. Evolving a genre and dividing fans. (I don't know how deep you want to go into Chatoyance though.)
Self-insert revenge: taking over Equestria one edgelord at a time, and the Malideus/Rise of Darth Vulcan that started it all. (At least, those are the earliest types of that story I'm aware of.) Could also lead into Displaced, since the two have some thorough commonalities.
Redeeming villains for fun and profit: who gets to be friended and who doesn't. (There's a big difference between Chrysalis, Discord, and Tirek, for example.)
Clop... Might be hard to find people to interview from early FiMfic, because I'm not sure people like Biologic Orthodoxy are still around (and I'm sure darf and TAW aren't), but you've got some consistent people in folks like Shakespearicles and dirty little secret.
Now, THAT would be a very interesting book to read.
I have a very interested
This sounds like something someone would do as a graduate thesis for your degree. It's quite the undertaking, if you do decide to take it up. I'd be interested to see the final results, too!
Happy to help with what I can, especially since you included me in your list for some odd reason. :)
Would you talk about the less savory parts of the fandom?
You have my interest, lets see where this can go!
So the interest in this project has been interesting... leading me to ask one question.
Would you pay money to read a book like this or not? Because I cannot quite figure that part out and if I do do this it would factor into my decision to make this a collab effort or not.
5129873 Thanks!
5129874 Mm hmm. Many of those questions are quite intriguing, but i need to figure out what frame am I looking at because this looks like a split between a genre study and a history study... but that might have to do.
5129882 lol. What would make you read it?
5129884
Oh Boy. Here's the issue, you think it'd be easy to chronicle the stories in fimfiction, but honestly that's flat out impossible. A lot of the more famous old stories I can examine, but ergh... this is intended to be less of a chronicle of stories and more of a examination of trends.
I'd think so, but I'd have to collect interview data to definitively prove that.
5129887 Ah, kk.
5129890 Literally never heard of that story before... again, feel free to request favorites, but one reason why i like to base my stuff on fimfiction stories is that it's very easy to use the rating and viewcount/subscriber systems to document how popular/well read these stories were. Some of the older EQD stuff might be a bit difficult to ... screen so to speak in a research plan as they lack that particular statistic.
On the flipside, if enough ppl mention it in word of mouth, then i might examine it.
5129906 That's the idea. I completely forgot about Conversion Bureau though because I'm not such a big fan of it, but if I was to do a history of the writing community that would be a subgenre I'd have to tackle.
5129908
Oh it would! That's the idea.
Yes that's what I meant. But there are issues with collaboration too. For one, if I were to turn this into a non-fiction published novel, a collab would make it more complicated. The advantages with a collaboration is I get more resources.
One thing I was considering was to do the book on my own (see if there's actually a topic here because yes I have a plan but you never know until you conduct research), but collaborate for let's say a wider-distributed documentary. This is because I absolutely suck at video editing.
Fair enough!
Not a bad idea, but LONG epic chronological narratives have the possibility of being clunky. I'd have to track several narratives, the history of the writing community migrating from forums, to EQD to fimfiction.net and then trends in fandom. It's why I think I need to split the two... as for the trends itself... ehhhh using the seasons as dividers might be useful, but this is a history of writing and writing doesn't stop between season hiatuses.
So I'd chronologically discuss Derpy, changes in canon and Twilight's princess status, but as trends in and of themselves coming in and out of prominence in the historical narrative, rather than using the season itself as a marker/topic.
5129919 It is! Now if I had more time and money...
5129924 Oh that's nice. I'm also thinking that I'd use other transcribed interviews with them. That way I might not need to directly interview, or limit time needed to interview/make interview better.
5129934 It's one reason I wanted to write this. There are a lot of new fans in MLP fimfiction. They have no idea what's been done before, what were the trends, who were the big names, and what were some great ideas out there. It was also attempted at one point to make a fimfiction writers documentary, but I cannot remember what happened to it.
5129950 Thanks Dan... except it hasn't started yet and I can't start it until at least next year
5129953 Good recommendations! How did I forget about those ones...
5129958 That'll be a topic, but I'd have to be careful on how closely I look at it. After all, I want to ensure it's a fandom examination rather than a character one, and that might be hard to balance :P.
5129960 More good ideas... Probably interview some of the consistent people rather than one-offs. Or I'd interview people who managed big hits.
5130055 5129997 IKR??? It'd be super fun, but there's the practicality of it right now in my life.
5130082 And that's the issue. This is a book or journal-length project. I'd either need to collab it or take a year to write this. I couldn't have done it for my MA in History thesis either because I specialized in Canadian history. This is far more recent history... and yes its non-fiction but no actual academic organization is going to touch this. This will definitely fall into what we call "Public history" history for the masses, in this case, the fandom... but I don't want to limit myself to that. I want to ensure that the public can learn something from this strange min-genre we have.
5130103 ? The writing fandom? you mean clopfics? Kinda have to talk about them lolwut. Stuff like vore I will avoid as it's a very very small minority of people who read and write that. Again, I need to actually start research.
5130114 Thanks! If I can ever start this damn project :P
5130278
Agreed, but it is an interesting topic
5130278
That's fair. A lot of trends here, especially in the early days, probably passed me by. And I thought this would be more of a look at the big fandom stories and the trends they started, and how how everything interacted with each other.
As for paying for this, no. There's a very small list of fan works I'd pay for and only one of them is on this site. But I'd still be interested in helping.
5130278
I like how you're approaching this as if it was a thesis, and I think that's why you've caught a lot of people's interest. You want to do this right, and with some actual thought put into it.
As for academia, well they just don't know what they're missing out on, now do they? :)
Aragon for Comedy
Monochromatic for Raritwi
Stardust, Xcom crossover
The League of Sweetie Belles crosses over with a bunch of stuff.
There's some good Dresden Files crossovers.
Outside the Reaching Sky for one of the earliest Space Operas.
5score is a thing, I guess. A fad that lasted longer than most.
Among the stories and authors you might wanna look into:
Andrew Joshua Talon - Progress
Considering this is the most famous pre-S2 Luna fanfic, this is a story worth look into, to see how Luna was portrayed before her return in Season 2. Also, the author is still active which is nice.
Tarbtano - The Bridge: A Godzilla-MLP Crossover
A very popular Crossover, kinda notable as it contains a benevolent Celestia at a time where Tyrant-Celestia was still a thing. It also popularize the Godzilla crossover on the MLP fandom. I'm pretty sure the author will be happy to talk to you.
Magic Man - Maternal Instinct
For the Changeling side of things, Maternal instinct might me a good example of a sympathetic villain. Magic Man is also active.
You can also consult Alex Warlorn, the author or Pony POV.
That's all I have for now, and good luck in the book.
Sounds fun~
For comedy I rec Aragon and Justice3442. If you decide to cover action at all, Moguera is wonderful at fight scenes.
5130278
I’d probably be willing to pay up to 20-25 dollars, though I live in the UK so shipping costs might be higher.
As someone who wasn't around for most of the first half of the fandom I'd love to read something like this. When I jumped in there was already a pretty large body of work and plenty of different genres. Seeing how it got here and how it's evolved over time would make for a fascinating read. In particular I've always found it fascinating how the ideas and themes often bleed across stories and then change over time. In some cases this is as simple as one author writing a spin off story of another authors work or several unrelated stories touching on similar themes. In another case you get Fallout Equestria + co where several authors have built stories derived from a specific work that become their own thing.
As to the question of if anyone would pay for this: I would without a doubt like a copy on my shelf.
5130278
Not just that. I'm talking about all the hate Equestrian Conversion Bureau has, the Rage Reviews, the random cunts who do illegal shit, the Fall of Equestria stuff e.t.c. They all have received bad rep for one reason or another.
5130278
The guy put it on here back in July, if I'm not mistaken. It really was one of the most popular along with...what was it called, past sins? it's just that it dropped off the radar precisely because it didn't appear on fimfic and wasn't updated for years.
5130278
I would be willing to dish out some funds to read it. Not as much as a college research text book, but like $30-$50 isn't bad.
If I may offer a suggestion? Tatsurou and his PWNYverse in the crossover section. Also, this sounds cool!
Oh Lord, this is could easily turn into "Add (insert favorite author) for writing Arghsnarflik".
Problem is it could also turn into a circlejerk for influential authors, putting too much emphasis on them which makes it look like they were the movers when more often than not, they were just part of the horde and just stood out for whatever reason.
Cupcakes is an excellent example. It's....kinda shit. Not really horror, it rode on shock than anything else, throwing gory imagery at the reader as opposed to any use of horror. Not was it even the first. It's fame basically came from shock value and then people building it up because it entered the fandoms mainstream.
As for the writing trends, a lot will boil down to "it's bright, shiny, and new"
Don't want to be a downer, but this project is freaking massive. You're gonna need a crew to heft the load.
5133638
One reason I’m not doing it right now and basically putting on the back burner is because of those possible problems. One, what’s an influential sub genre/story, and two, how many ppl do I need and what complications may arise because as you and I know, working with ppl is complicated
Also I’m aware of stuff like cupcakes but this isn’t about judging what is the best fic but rather analyzing why these became influential :P
If I may make a suggestion, maybe interview a few readers/writers that have only recently joined the site?
I would be willing to offer my opinions if you'd like.
5134261
Uhhh that depends. If they are recent joiners I need to have seen them featured/output a lot of work that’s read by a lot. Irrespective is the one I can think off the top of my head as he’s joined in the last two years.
Feel free to suggest but no guarantees. I still haven’t figured out my grading system
I should recommend On a Cross and Arrow by Conner Cogwork, the story that established the fandom's Rule 63 content. All gender-swap stories use the names from that story. That NEEDS to be included.
I'd also like to mention the author shortskirtsandexplosions. He's a prolific writer and his style is instantly recognizable. On a more personal note, it was one of his stories that introduced me to this site and all that's in it.
5155556
Good ideas!
If you ever want an interview with me, let me know.